


Disappear

by isthisenoughorcanwegohigher



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: ......i didnt realize that was an existing tag cool, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Suicide Attempt, but that line from DEH wrecked my entire life so i figured i could use it, did you fall? or did you let go?, i get inspired by a lot of songs and musicals apparently, this was inspired by that One Line in Dear Evan Hansen, to write angst (which is Not A Surprise), yeah that one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 12:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isthisenoughorcanwegohigher/pseuds/isthisenoughorcanwegohigher
Summary: Did you fall? Or did you let go?Newt wants out. He doesn't feel anymore. This is the only way he knows, because there is no escape from the Maze.





	Disappear

**Author's Note:**

> Look. You clicked on this. You read the tags and the summary and you're here. You know what you're about to read.

The sun was just beginning to peek over the top of the walls when Newt slipped out of his hammock.

He could hear the sounds of Minho and the other Runners heading to the Map Room. Normally he would join them, but today, he had other plans. He’d talked with Minho last night at dinner and already knew which sections everyone would be covering. He also knew that, with Jack dead, he’d be the one running the Maze alone today.

A sigh escaped his lips. At least after today, the Runners wouldn’t be stuck alone in the Maze. Least until another Runner came along. Newt couldn’t find it in himself to be upset that he wouldn’t get to meet the Greenie who might be the next Runner. He couldn’t find it in himself to be upset about anything, actually.

Everything was just…blank. He felt nothing anymore.

That wasn’t strictly true. He felt the grass tickling his feet, so he reached down and slipped his shoes on, finally standing in the quiet dawn.

On his feet, he could see the fire going at the cooking tent. Frypan was up, too, then. He wondered how he’d missed noticing the cook wake up.

Newt slipped his Runner pack over his shoulders and headed over to the tables. Frypan was sitting at one of them, sipping on a mug of something steaming. There was a plate next to him with bread, cheese, and a few apple slices.

“Morning,” Frypan greeted, quirking an eyebrow up. “Sleeping in?”

“Something like that,” Newt responded, sliding into the seat next to Fry and picking up an apple slice. 

He regarded it with a vacant expression. He didn’t want to eat, couldn’t find the energy to put the apple in his mouth, but if he was going to follow through on his plan, then he needed all the energy he could get.

“Minho keep you up last night?” Frypan smirked over the rim of his mug. 

A pink tinge colored Newt’s cheeks. “Shut up.”

“Ah, so that is it.” Fry’s smirk grew.

It wasn’t in fact why Newt was so late, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell Frypan that. In truth, Newt had been up long before anyone else was, he just hadn’t had the heart to listen to the banter amongst the Runners or face his boyfriend today. Not when he knew that it would be the last time they would see him.

“You alright?”

The question caught him off guard.

“What?”

Frypan tilted his head and narrowed his eyes slightly. “Are you okay, Newt?” He asked.

“Yeah.” Newt coughed quietly. “‘M fine. Just didn’t get much sleep.”

Frypan’s face slid into a frown. “Okay.”

Newt slipped the apple slice still in his hand into his mouth and chewed, turning away to watch the Runners disappearing into the Maze. Minho turned around, spotted Newt, and changed course, jogging to the table.

“Hey!” Minho greeted the pair at the table brightly, leaning down to place a quick kiss on Newt’s cheek. “You gonna be alright alone today, Newtie?”

Newt glared at Minho briefly, earning a cheeky grin in return. “Yes,” he sighed. “I’ll be fine.”

He turned back to his plate and forced another slice of apple into his mouth, missing the look that Fry and Minho shared.

“See you when we get back, then,” Minho said, still smiling, although if Newt had looked at him, he would have noticed how forced it looked.

Newt nodded in agreement, afraid that the guilt building up in his stomach would make him say something if he tried to respond. The apple in his mouth suddenly tasted very bitter.

Minho frowned at the back of Newt’s head for a moment, concern planting itself in his heart and twisting its way through his veins. He shook his head and pushed the concern away, heading back to the entrance of the Maze with a wave in Frypan’s direction.

Feeling the turmoil rising up in his throat and making his eyes itch, Newt stood abruptly. “I’m heading into the Maze,” he said, not really directing it at Frypan, but needing to say it nonetheless.

The words were a thin veneer over everything he wanted to say, and Newt could feel himself cracking with the look Frypan was giving him. Before Frypan could say anything, Newt had taken off towards the Maze. 

The feeling of grass and dirt giving way to concrete and stone invoked a sense of calm in Newt when he was finally in the Maze. The guilt in his stomach dissipated, and he slowed to a fast walk, admiring the stone walls and the ivy climbing them for the first time, really committing it to memory. 

If he really was going to die today, then he was going to take a moment to appreciate the beauty in the world he’d grown to hate so much.

A ray of light from the still rising sun illuminated a dead end corner as he passed it, and Newt paused, staring at the brilliantly golden light as it tangled with the ivy. The stone appeared almost brown in this sudden light. A trace of a smile tugged at Newt’s lips.

Ironic, he thought, that he should finally feel calm and happy, really relaxed and free, the day he planned on dying. 

Actually. Newt stared at the wall in front of him again, tilting his head. This was the perfect spot. No one would find him here, and if they did, it would be too late for them to do anything without risking being caught in the Maze for the night. 

Yes, this would have to do. Better to get it over with before anyone could save him or stop him. Better to do it before he chickened out like the shuck coward he knew he was and was too scared to try this again and he ended up stuck in the Glade for the rest of his life.

Newt approached the ivy covered wall and inhaled sharply. This was it.

He reached above his head and gripped the ivy tightly in his fists, coiling it around his hands for better purchase. Exhale, inhale.

He jumped and scrambled with his feet until he was steady against the wall. Risking a glance down, Newt shivered slightly. He’d never been one for heights, always preferring his feet solidly on the ground. Exhale, inhale.

He cautiously untangled his right hand and extended it further up, clutching the ivy above him like his life depended on it. It did, in a way, he thought, fighting back a laugh. He had to keep quiet lest he be discovered.

Newt could only imagine the looks the he would get if anyone found him doing this. He could only imagine Minho’s face if he knew what–

Newt shook his head sharply, dispelling that train of thought. If he thought of Minho now, then he’d surely fail. He hadn’t even told Minho that he loved him this morning. But, he reasoned, Minho would be better off without him holding him back. They all would.

He hadn’t even left a letter. There would be nothing left of him after this except the memories. For a moment, Newt regretted not leaving a letter, but something of his left behind would only keep Minho from moving on. And he would move on. He had to. 

These thoughts accompanied Newt further up the wall, until he was pulled from his thoughts by a light glinting in his face.

He blinked and froze, clinging to the ivy, glancing around for the source.

It was a beetle blade. He studied it for a minute, memorizing the bright silver color, the mechanical red glow of the eyes, and the letters emblazoned on it: WCKD. For a long moment, Newt got the eerie feeling that something besides the beetle was watching him, silently urging him back to the ground.

Desperate to be rid of the feeling of eyes on him, Newt risked a look back at the ground.

His breath caught in his throat and a shiver ran down his spine, sending his stomach into somersaults. He hadn’t realized how high he’d climbed until this moment, so focused on the task of making it up the wall.

In fact, he was so high up that looking at the ground made his head spin. He cautiously raised his head towards the sky and saw that he was almost at the top of the wall, where the ivy ended.

It was time.

Newt’s heart was racing faster and faster, a furious rhythm pounding against his ribs like it knew it only had a few more short beats to carry out its purpose. He imagined for a moment that he could hear Minho calling to him, and then Newt closed his eyes and let go.

The wind rushed through his hair as he fell, gaining speed as gravity caught up with him. He could feel himself starting to turn in the air, the momentum of the fall shifting him from falling with his back to the ground to falling diagonally, head first.

His chest tightened and Newt breathed faster, his eyes snapping open as he realized the change in the direction he was falling. Very suddenly, he knew he didn’t want this. He didn’t want to fall anymore, he didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to leave Minho.

He wanted to reach out and grab the ivy, to swing against the wall and lose his breath in the impact with the stone, to live and fight, and to see Minho’s smile, to kiss him again, to tell him that he loved him….

As if in sickly answer to the desperation, to the onslaught of things he was suddenly feeling again, the angle of Newt’s fall brought him too close to the ivy on the wall he’d climbed up. 

His ankle caught in the ivy. The sudden stop to his fall swung him hard into the stone, back first. The impact sent him bouncing lightly into the air again, dangling upside down from the wall by his ankle.

Panicking, Newt began to reach up to untangle himself and climb back down. His breathing was short and heavy.

The movement was the wrong thing to do. His ankle was free from the ivy, but not before he heard more than felt the snap, and all Newt could do was let out a pained whimper before he knew nothing else.

* * *

When he came to, the first thing Newt was aware of was the soft and broken sound of someone trying to hide the fact that they were crying. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, horrified of seeing the face of the person crying.

The next thing he was aware of was that he was being carried in someone’s arms, and that the movement jostled his entire body, which screamed with pain. A moment later, he realized that the pain wasn’t all over his body, not really, although he knew that his entire body would, in fact, ache for days after his impact with the floor of the Maze. No, the pain was centralized on one point of his body–his right leg.

A particularly painful shift of his body in the arms carrying him had Newt gasping sharply in pain, and his eyes flew open, traveling down to his leg. He nearly lost consciousness again at the sight of blood and–god was that bone?–but before he could lose himself to the blackness of it again, the person carrying him spoke.

“Newt? Oh my god, Newt, what happened? Are you okay? Jesus, I saw you fall and I was so worried, I thought for sure that I’d lost you, and I ran as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough, I couldn’t catch you, and fuck, are you okay?” The words spilled past Minho’s lips in a rush, his voice thick with the desperate sadness he was now trying to squash, in order not to frighten the blond boy in his arms.

Of course it would be Minho that found him. Newt cast around for a suitable lie, because he couldn’t bear the fearful hurt on his boyfriend’s face, and if Minho knew the truth, well….

“Saw a Griever,” Newt breathed out, hoping the words would placate Minho. “Had nowhere to run, so I climbed the wall to get away. Don’t think it noticed me, though. I was going to climb back down when I f…when I fell.”

“A Griever?” Minho asked in a hushed whisper. “You…you climbed the wall to escape it and fell?”

Newt couldn’t give a verbal response as another shock of pain washed over him, so he opened his eyes and gazed at Minho, hoping that this would convince the boy.

Minho swallowed. “Okay. Okay. You fell.”

Newt nodded. He forced the words out. “Yeah. Fell.”

Minho stopped running for a minute, both to catch his breath and really stare at the broken boy in his arms. “Newt….” he said quietly.

“‘M sorry, Min,” Newt whispered. “Just…let’s get back to the Glade. ‘S getting late.”

“Did you fall?” Minho spoke so softly that Newt wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear the question. They made eye contact, and Newt’s vision blurred with tears as he saw something unreadable in Minho’s gaze.

“Did you fall?” Minho repeated. “Or did you let go?”

He knew. Minho knew. Of course he did. Newt’s breathe left him in a quiet sob, and he shut his eyes again. He felt Minho shift him in his arms, and his boyfriend clung to him tighter after that.

“Oh, Newt,” he mumbled, leaning over to press a kiss into Newt’s hair.

“I’m so sorry.” The words were foreign on Newt’s tongue, but he repeated them until they were all he knew, a distraction from Minho’s distraught expression and the pain in his leg.

Minho shushed him gently, starting to jog through the Maze again. “’S okay, Newt. It’s going to be okay. I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna help you feel better, get better. You’re going to be okay. I love you so much. ‘M not gonna let you disappear.”


End file.
